Saturday, October 31, 2015

We're Still Here

The Downtown Cabaret Theatre -- A Study in Survival

Good times and bum
times, I’ve seen them all

And, my dear, I’m
still here

Plush velvet sometimes

Sometimes just
pretzels and beer, but I’m here

Those are the opening lines of “I’m
Still Here” from Stephen Sondheim’s Follies.
The show is about a group of actors reuniting in a Broadway theater that’s
scheduled for demolition, but it could easily have been written about the Hallinan
family and the Downtown Cabaret Theatre in Bridgeport. Through good times and bad,
triumphs and trials, fanfares and flops, the DCT has managed to survive and is,
hopefully, about to enjoy a renaissance under the leadership of Hugh Hallinan,
the venue’s executive producer.

Located at 263 Golden Hill Street,
just steps up from the Bridgeport police department, the theater has been
“tempest tossed’ several times, and lesser folks might have allowed the vessel
to capsize and sink beneath the waters, but the Hallinans are theater-folk, and
as another song suggests, “There’s no people like show people.”

It all began in 1975, when shows
first started being produced at the Sacred Heart University Cabaret. Initial
success led to a search for a more permanent venue and a building in Bridgeport that once
housed the YWCA was considered. It would prove to be both a blessing and a
curse.

Hugh Hallinan

In a recent interview, Hugh
Hallinan explained what might be called the love-hate relationship the theater
has had with the city. “When Richard (Hugh’s father) got here in 1980,”
Hallinan said, “we had no way to measure what state Bridgeport
was in, having just come from another country (Ireland). At that point, Richard
stepped into a dark theater – as my recollection goes – and the mayor
encouraged him and said ‘We’re on the rebound and in five years Bridgeport will be
thriving. Well, Nineteen eighty-five came and went, 1990 came and went, and in
1996, when the state awarded us a million dollars, we felt the momentum was
growing, we felt that there was a reason we had put 16 years into this theater.
That kept us going until about 2005. It was hope and optimism that got us that
far, and I think that’s the ultimate answer to the question of ‘Why?’”

From the beginning, the Hallinan’s
have had to deal with the ‘image’ that Bridgeport
presented to the rest of the state. “Let’s go to Bridgeport
for a meal and then take in a show” was not a statement heard in many Connecticut homes. Right
or wrong, lurking in the minds of many was the idea that Bridgeport just wasn’t “safe.”

A reminder of the building's history

Richard Hallinan died in 2006, and
in 2007 Hugh had to begin the process of renegotiating the property’s lease
with the city. He remembers walking up the steps of city hall to make a pitch to
the city council to renew the lease and said to the chairman of the DCT board
who had accompanied him, “You know, I think the city is coming back. It’s
starting to happen.” The chairman’s response: “Not in our lifetime.”

Running a theater is a tough task
at best, and Hallinan often ponders how much of his time and talents have been
used, or ‘underutilized,” as he put it, to deal with being in Bridgeport rather
than focusing on making the Cabaret thrive, questioning if he’s “been using his
time wisely.” He paused a moment to calculate the years he has given to the
Cabaret and then said: “This year I’ll be 53, and you kind of wonder – you’ve
got probably one good fight left in you to do something sizeable.” He went
silent for a moment.

Should he leave Bridgeport, move on? Hallinan isn’t sure.
“There’s a method to doing business in Bridgeport
and it uses up about one-third of your mental resources. The flip-side of that
is that if you were in a town where you don’t have to deal with an image
perception, your resources could be put to better use.”

And yet, though he has the talent
and the “creds” to earn a living in the theater world – he has, for example,
done the lighting for many nationally touring shows – there are things that
have held him in place and motivated him to keep DCT afloat.

A view of the theater from the stage

“Part of the equation that slowed
me down, at a point when I might have made a change, was I had my son in 2000
and that took me out of the national lighting design field because I had to be
home for him. Basically, being a single parent, I needed to be around for him.
I had to step away from designing so many national tours, which was really my
bread and butter at the time, and start focusing on the theater here.”

And yet…there’s something else,
perhaps less tangible than the responsibility of raising a son but no less
real, that holds Hallinan in place, and that is measured in the years he, his
father and his mother, Susan, have devoted to the Cabaret. It is something that
you don’t walk away from easily. “There’s a part of me,” Hallinan said, “that
believes that Bridgeport
can turn the corner.

And yet…Hallinan does not lay all
of DCT’s past troubles at Bridgeport’s
doorstep. He recognizes that he and his parents have sometimes loved the
theater not wisely but too well. In the past, when DCT was producing its own
shows, Hallinan suggested that in an effort to give the audience what it wanted
the shows were over-produced, perhaps by as much as thirty-five or forty
percent. He estimated that back then, each show cost around $300,000 to board.
The telling point was in 2006, when DCT staged Sweet Charity.

“That was the last show we fully
produced under our Equity contract,” Hallinan said. “Business wasn’t good. We
actually cut the run short. We closed the production in the beginning of May
and two weeks later Richard died. We had pulled every last favor, we had
scraped together every last dime to mount that show and do it in such a way
that no corners were cut. We wanted to make sure – it was always our
philosophy: never cut corners.” It didn’t matter.

The children's dressing room

Quite simply, DCT ran out of money
and the question obviously arose, why not reorganize? To add salt to the
multiple wounds, DCT’s children’s theater was, in Hallinan’s words,
“floundering.” So, he turned his attention to that aspect of the business while
asking himself, “What can we bring in that wouldn’t be as expensive as an
Equity show?” The answer was tribute shows – pre-packaged productions with a
limited cast that would require DCT to essentially just provide the space and
technical support. The first show was a tribute to the Beatles – She Loves You -- and it was a success.
This was a followed by a Johnny Cash show – again, a success, and both were
produced for about twenty-five percent of what a full Equity production might
have cost. These two were followed by a tribute to the Rolling Stones. Hallinan
said he hadn’t been sure about this one.

“Just bringing in a Rolling Stones
tribute show that we had no control over, that we hadn’t been a part of the
artistic process, made me nervous.” However, his focus was now on the
children’s productions so, a bit hesitant, he booked the show.

“You know,” he said, smiling wryly,
“I stood in the back of the theater and I looked at the audience and I said,
‘Well, there’s a lesson learned.’ The audience was enthusiastic. They were up
on their feet.” So Hallinan actively went in search of other tribute acts. There
was little or no work involved – all DCT had to do was provide the stage, the
lights, “and, of course, the cabaret atmosphere,” an atmosphere that, Hallinan
admitted, he had come to take for granted, perhaps not recognizing just how
important that aspect of the theater-going evening it was to DCT’s survival.

Wardrobe

So, DCT was still breathing, and
the children’s theater was alive and again well. Hallinan believed that at
least this aspect of DCT’s existence was stable, would go on forever but, of
course, nothing goes on forever.

“A situation arose,” Hallinan said,
“that made us aware that we had no choice. It was mid-season, it was mid-run of
a show, and the people who were primarily responsible for the production, the
acting, the writing and directing, the costume designs – well, we had to
terminate our relationship.”

With that, the children’s company
was, as Hallinan put it, “turned upside down.” As Hallinan remembered it, the
company stumbled and staggered for several years, relying on book productions that
were very uneven. Standards declined and the audience sensed it. Attempts were
made to stabilize the situation by using some Disney Junior shows, but they
were very expensive. And then…well, in the theater business you just never
know. One day, a man named Phill Hill, who had been the stage manager for the
children’s theater since 2007, dropped a script on Hallinan’s desk. It was for
a show called RobinHood that Hill had written. Being a bit dyslexic, Hallinan turned
the script over to his mother for perusal with less than high expectations.

“About three hours later,” Hallinan
said, “she calls me up and says, ‘It’s brilliant.’ Phill now is in his second
full season of writing all of the shows. And the accolades are coming in, we’re
hearing people say ‘You’re back to where you were.’ That was a long ride from
2007 to 2013.”

Serendipity. In theater as in life,
if you stay the course, sooner or later something will happen, something will
change. Hill had been there all along, watching, learning, and he had talent.
The children’s theater was once again in good hands, but what about the main
stage productions? Yes, DCT could continue to bring in tribute shows, but
Hallinan was starting to get the urge to once again stage musicals.

Having recognized the over-production
syndrome, Hallinan realized that if DCT was going to once again stage musicals
it would have to do so with a closer eye on the bottom line, which meant that
productions would have to be staged on a more limited budget but, as he
suggested, “You can enjoy a great steak, but you can also enjoy a hamburger if
it is well made.”

As Hallinan began thinking about
once again staging musicals, across town the Bridgeport Theater Company was out
on the street after Playhouse on the Green closed. Hallinan met with Eli
Newsom, who asked if BTC could use DCT’s theater. Hallinan had concerns,
primarily about what he called “branding” – in other words, would the audience
know who was doing and responsible for what? So Hallinan said no, but that
didn’t deter Newsom. Three weeks later Newsom was back and again asked if BTC
could use the theater.

“I’m a bit of a pushover,” Hallinan
said. He agreed, but stipulated that it had to be clear that they would be BTC
shows. He was also honest with Newsom: “I’m going to give you some pretty
crappy time slots, you know, like when it snows a lot.” Eager for a venue,
Newsom agreed.

The productions went forward, but
Hallinan was still concerned about image – not that BTC was producing inferior
work, but rather the confusion among patrons as to whose work they were
actually seeing. However, Hallinan gave BTC a second season and, as these
things happen, he was slowly drawn into what BTC was doing.

“I was starting to get involved,”
Hallinan said. “My artistic eye was starting to contribute to the production
standards, and towards the end of last summer – May of 2014 – well, it was a
significant time.” It was significant because DCT had to shut down so the
building’s owner could attend to asbestos abatement. In other words, the building
had to essentially be torn apart. During this time, Hallinan once again
attempted to say goodbye to BTC with the idea that DCT was, once the building
was again up to code, about to start producing its own shows again. If so,
there would be a conflict. Hallinan said that Newsom seemed to understand,
but…there’s always a way. So…

Hallinan explained: “I said, Eli,
if you agree to come in and run what we want to do, pretty much do what you’re
doing now, but for us…well, that’s what turned out to be the case. He agreed. And
so, we started planning. I would have had to go out and hire someone to help
produce the shows, but I couldn’t think of anyone better to do that than Eli.
He’s sharp. He’s artistic. He’s got youth and he’s got energy, and that’s what
we need. So he has become the artistic director and I am the executive
producer.”

And so it goes. At one point, DCT
was bringing in 80,000 patrons a year. That fell to a low of 35,000 per year.
The patronage is now back up to 60,000. Memphiswas successfully staged in the fall.
Coming up will be Fiddler on the Roof (December),
The Great Gatsby (February), Evita (March), and American Idiot (spring of 2016).

The children’s theater is once
again on target and there will be a series of Main Stage Concerts, single
evenings that will continue to offer tribute shows. The building where DCT is
housed is now asbestos-free, there are new offices, and a staff that had once
been reduced to three is now back up to seven.

In Greek mythology, the phoenix was
a bird that cyclically was regenerated or reborn, arising out of its ashes. The
Downtown Cabaret Theatre is currently not considering changing its name, but if
it ever does, it might consider that magical bird.